The mutationathon highlights the importance of reaching standardization in estimates of pedigree-based germline mutation rates
Abstract
In the past decade, several studies have estimated the human per-generation germline mutation rate using large pedigrees. More recently, estimates for various non-human species have been published. However, methodological differences among studies in detecting germline mutations and estimating mutation rates make direct comparisons difficult. Here, we describe the many different steps involved in estimating pedigree-based mutation rates, including sampling, sequencing, mapping, variant calling, filtering, and how to appropriately account for false-positive and false-negative rates. For each step, we review the different methods and parameter choices that have been used in the recent literature. Additionally, we present the results from a 'Mutationathon', a competition organized among five research labs to compare germline mutation rate estimates for a single pedigree of rhesus macaques. We report almost a two-fold variation in the final estimated rate among groups using different post-alignment processing, calling, and filtering criteria and provide details into the sources of variation across studies. Though the difference among estimates is not statistically significant, this discrepancy emphasizes the need for standardized methods in mutation rate estimations and the difficulty in comparing rates from different studies. Finally, this work aims to provide guidelines for computational and statistical benchmarks for future studies interested in identifying germline mutations from pedigrees.
Data availability
The sequences of the pedigree analyzed are available on NCBI under the accession numbers:SRR10426295;SRR10426294;SRR10426275;SRR10426264;SRR10426253;SRR10426291;SRR10426290;SRR10426256;SRR10426255.The PCR experiment and Sanger resequencing produced for this work are deposited on Genbank under the accession number MZ661796 - MZ662076. Supplementary table 4 describe the data.The scripts used by the participants of the Mutationathon are publically available on different github described in the manuscript.Figure 3, 4 and 5 can be reproduced with the data in Figure 3 - source data 1, Figure 4 - source data 1, and Figure 5 - source data 1 .
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Carlsbergfondet (CF16-0663)
- Guojie Zhang
US national science foundation CAREER (DEB-2045343)
- Susanne P Pfeifer
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo, Université Paris-Diderot CNRS, France
Version history
- Preprint posted: August 31, 2021 (view preprint)
- Received: September 2, 2021
- Accepted: January 11, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: January 12, 2022 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: February 10, 2022 (version 2)
- Version of Record updated: November 9, 2022 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2022, Bergeron et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 3,031
- views
-
- 355
- downloads
-
- 36
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Evolutionary Biology
- Microbiology and Infectious Disease
HERV-K(HML-2), the youngest clade of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), includes many intact or nearly intact proviruses, but no replication competent HML-2 proviruses have been identified in humans. HML-2-related proviruses are present in other primates, including rhesus macaques, but the extent and timing of HML-2 activity in macaques remains unclear. We have identified 145 HML-2-like proviruses in rhesus macaques, including a clade of young, rhesus-specific insertions. Age estimates, intact ORFs, and insertional polymorphism of these insertions are consistent with recent or ongoing infectious activity in macaques. 106 of the proviruses form a clade characterized by an ~750 bp sequence between env and the 3' LTR, derived from an ancient recombination with a HERV-K(HML-8)-related virus. This clade is found in Old World monkeys (OWM), but not great apes, suggesting it originated after the ape/OWM split. We identified similar proviruses in white-cheeked gibbons; the gibbon insertions cluster within the OWM recombinant clade, suggesting interspecies transmission from OWM to gibbons. The LTRs of the youngest proviruses have deletions in U3, which disrupt the Rec Response Element (RcRE), required for nuclear export of unspliced viral RNA. We show that the HML-8 derived region functions as a Rec-independent constitutive transport element (CTE), indicating the ancestral Rec-RcRE export system was replaced by a CTE mechanism.
-
- Evolutionary Biology
Extant ecdysozoans (moulting animals) are represented by a great variety of soft-bodied or articulated organisms that may or may not have appendages. However, controversies remain about the vermiform nature (i.e. elongated and tubular) of their ancestral body plan. We describe here Beretella spinosa gen. et sp. nov. a tiny (maximal length 3 mm) ecdysozoan from the lowermost Cambrian, Yanjiahe Formation, South China, characterized by an unusual sack-like appearance, single opening, and spiny ornament. Beretella spinosa gen. et sp. nov has no equivalent among animals, except Saccorhytus coronarius, also from the basal Cambrian. Phylogenetic analyses resolve both fossil species as a sister group (Saccorhytida) to all known Ecdysozoa, thus suggesting that ancestral ecdysozoans may have been non-vermiform animals. Saccorhytids are likely to represent an early off-shot along the stem-line Ecdysozoa. Although it became extinct during the Cambrian, this animal lineage provides precious insight into the early evolution of Ecdysozoa and the nature of the earliest representatives of the group.